If there was a shadow of doubt that Lewis Hamilton is in the form of his life, he surely banished it under the floodlights of Singapore’s Marina Bay circuit on Saturday. His lap to take polemust rank not only as one of his best but perhaps one of the best of his generation.

Such was the scale and import of his extraordinary performance, his team’s elation was tinged with a sense of disbelief. His Ferrari rival Sebastian Vettel, who could manage only third, was left similarly stunned, almost reeling from a result that seemed unthinkable when qualifying began and may yet prove to be a pivotal moment in deciding the F1 title.

“That lap started perfect and it just kept going,” the Mercedes driver said. “It felt magical. It felt like one of the best – if not the best lap I’ve ever done.”

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Hamilton leads Vettel by 30 points in the world championship but Ferrari had expected to be strong in Singapore. They had been on top, their carwell suited to the 23 slow and medium speed corners of the track. The indications from Mercedes were that minimising the points dropped to Vettel would amount to a positive race. Hamilton, however, was having none of it.

He was right to describe the lap as magic and Vettel could be forgiven for thinking there was sorcery in the air. Hamilton’s 79th pole on his first quick run in Q3 was a consummate piece of driving.

Pushing to the limitwithout touching the walls that are ready to punish the slightest miscalculation is key in Singapore and Hamilton took his car to the edge through every corner. His recent laps for pole in the wet at Hungary and Belgium were superb but here he found time from nowhere. The one run was enough, no one came close even on their second attempts.

He completed the lap in 1min 36.015sec but it was the margin of his advantage that was telling. He was three-tenths ahead of Max Verstappen, who was second for Red Bull, and a huge sixth-tenths up on Vettel. The German is acknowledged as being very strong in Singapore but was made to look powerless. That it is Hamilton making the difference was inarguable; his team-mate Valtteri Bottas, in an identical car, was fourth almost seven-tenths back.

“This track is epic. It is the most challenging circuit for us in the year, it is Monaco on steroids,” Hamilton said. “It is about pulling all the little bits you have found through practice and putting it together – 99% of the time it doesn’t go right but that lap I didn’t have a wheelspin, I didn’t have a snap, the car was underneath me and I managed to maximise on every corner. I don’t remember one where I thought I could do more.”

Mercedes clearly felt he had pulled off something extraordinary. Their race engineer, Pete Bonnington, called it “an epic lap” and the strategist, James Vowles, was left shaking his head in disbelief. The technical director, James Allison, was similarly moved. “It is difficult to put into words how it feels on days like this. It is overwhelming on so many levels,” he said. “It was a breathtaking performance by Lewis.”

The team principal, Toto Wolff, said Hamilton is operating on another plane. “I can’t explain what happened on that lap,” he said. “He is such an exceptional driver, only he will know what he did. It’s just surreal.”

Lewis Hamilton is aiming this season to win his fifth F1 title. Photograph: Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters

Vettel was clearly unhappy with how Ferrari had managed his session. “The way we composed qualifying, I think it was difficult to get a rhythm,” he said. “I was struggling in Q1, Q2, Q3. I think other people did a better job. That’s including Lewis’ lap as an individual but also them as a team.

“It didn’t go as smoothly as it should have been. It was not an ideal session, we should have done better. We had the ingredients and didn’t put it together.”

Ferrari will be strong in race pace but Mercedes are confident their car has more to offer, and Hamilton is aware just what a blow to his rivals it would be if he leaves Singapore having extended his lead. “We knew the Ferrari’s and the Red Bulls would be hard to beat,” he said. “So this is an incredible moment for us to be on pole.”

Kimi Räikkönen qualified fifth and the second Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo was sixth. The Force India’s of Sergio Pérez and Esteban Ocon were seventh and ninth. The Haas of Romain Grosjean was eighth with Renault’s Nico Hülkenberg 10th.